Spurgeon - Morning & Evening
Go to Morning
Are there no exceptions? No, not one. Even the favored race are thus described. Are the best—so bad? Then what must the worst be? Come, my heart, consider how far you have a share in this universal accusation, and while considering, be ready to take shame unto yourself however you may have been guilty.
The first charge is impudence, or hardness of forehead, a lack of holy shame, an unhallowed boldness in evil. Before my conversion, I could sin—and feel no remorse; hear of my guilt—and yet remain unhumbled; and even confess my iniquity—and have no inward humiliation on account of it. For a sinner to go to God's house and pretend to pray to Him and praise Him—argues a brazen-facedness of the worst kind! Alas! since the day of my new birth I have doubted my Lord to His face, murmured unblushingly in His presence, worshiped before Him in a slovenly manner, and sinned without bewailing myself concerning it. If my forehead were not as an adamant, harder than flint—I would have far more holy fear, and a far deeper contrition of spirit. Woe is me—I am one of the impudent house of Israel!
The second charge is hard-heartedness, and I must not venture to plead innocent here. Once I had nothing but a heart of stone, and although through grace I now have a new and fleshy heart, much of my former obduracy remains. I am not affected by the death of Jesus as I ought to be; neither am I moved by the ruin of my fellow men, the wickedness of the times, the chastisement of my heavenly Father, and my own failures—as I should be. O that my heart would melt at the recital of my Savior's sufferings and death. Would to God I were rid of this nether millstone within me—this hateful body of death. Blessed be the name of the Lord, the disease is not incurable, the Savior's precious blood is the universal solvent, and me, even me, it will effectually soften—until my heart melts as wax before the fire!
Courtesy of Grace Gems! Used by permission.